The things I carry can be used as a code to decipher the complex maze I call me. These things are tangible, real, concrete.

However, they can also be intangible, conceptual, and immaterial.

At times I carry only the clothing on my back and the soles of the shoes on my feet. Other times I carry a backpack of ample possessions, material things of little importance. An agenda, cell phone, hand lotion, a pocket knife, lighter; all superfluous belongings.

All unnecessary weight.

But also among theses material possessions you will find a sketchbook, pencils, little pink erasers, things that I need. These things tell of a story, an aspiring artist, a young girl trying her hardest to follow her dream. For inspiration, I carry my music, my iPod is a necessity, and it helps paint the pictures in my mind, which I shall someday turn into a masterpiece.

I carry the burden of my past, the sorrows and pain. But in a way, this burden carries me. Mental cumbrance, anchoring me to reality, keeping my feet fastened to the rocky road as I walk onward. I shall paint this burden, use it as inspiration as well, turn pain into beauty, and paint my story for the world to someday see.

I carry these burdens and they motivate me to proceed.

These burdens carry me, and inspire me to excel and achieve my dream, a young artist, wanting to paint her story for the world to someday see.

I am a maze within a maze.

I am a dreamer within a dream.

And as I walk through this world, with this backpack on my back, and these burdens on my mind, I carry these things, and these things carry me. I stop to draw every now and then, maybe I’ll paint, or maybe I will try to tell my story in many different ways.

But it is, and always will be, these things I carry that carry me.

REFLECTIVE MUSIC: Mouvements perpetuels by Francis Poulenc

3. THE BLACK CAT AND THE BABY GRAND PIANO

by A. S. Maulucci

As a young feline with human tendencies

I was vain about my ebony fur

and loved to have it stroked

by beautiful women of ample means

whose husbands were wont

to leave them to their own devices.

I lay about on velvet couches

in high-ceilinged sunlit rooms

where always a stout piano

stretched its bulk

and stared vacantly about

like a drugged behemoth in a zoo.

We were both waiting,

the piano and I,

for the touch of gentle fingers

to bring to life our sparkling melodies

and awaken our deepest chords.

I don’t mind boasting that

I always believed I could purr

as beautifully as six bars of Chopin.

The piano lay there with his open keyboard yawning,

like some shameless household sloth,

while I reclined supine upon the sofa,

no better, I suppose, than him,

but at least I remained aloof

and pretended not to care,

while he, poor thing, seemed to pant doggy style

every time our mistress entered the room.

When I’m feeling playful or sorry for him,

which doesn’t happen very often,

I run across the keys.

It was this kind of humiliating behavior

that brought me abruptly to my senses.

The duchess was playing Schubert

while I was staring out the window

thinking that she had lost her appeal

like over-ripened fruit

and it was high time I went in search of younger fingers.

So I walked out that morning without a word to anyone.

Now the piano has her all to himself,

and yet I feel nothing but pity for a beast

who must remain in one place and beg for love.

REFLECTIVE MUSIC: Impromptu in F Minor, D. 935

4. WARM GREEN TEA by Scott Fivelson (2010)

In her absence

(short as a breath may it be)

she said I could drink her green tea

Thank you, my love, but no

I said

that tea is not for me

It’s saved for you

all for you

But I’ll tell you what I’ll do

I will sip from your teacup

so as to touch my lips

to where yours have been

And must be again.

REFLECTIVE MUSIC: Fantasy for Flute and Piano in C, Op. 79 by Gabriel

5. MEASURING ABSENCE by Richard Levine

Moonbeams straddle your house and mine, measuring my missing you not in darkness, miles, or hours driven,but in the shining height of steepled solitude.

As the lone curate of that space, in the bed your absence makes vast, I roam sleepless pastures of night reading poems aloud for company.

My voice knows the limits of reach, but my heart beats in two places at once.

"Words & Music" is a one-hour long segment of poetry and music. Since December of 2011, I have recited hundreds of poems, each followed by a piece of music which (I feel) reflects the soul and energy of the poem. Of course, this is all subjective. However, the purpose of "Words & Music" is to explore and enjoy the profound link between...words and music.

Many of the poems recited on the air have been those of the masters: Shakespeare, Auden, Shelley, Keats, Whitman, and other renowned poetic voices. Other poems have been submitted by contemporary poets who are living, breathing, and creating here and now. This blog will publish ALL of the poetry heard on the air, along with information about the poets and the music heard on the program.